Three of
the stories are not concerned in this section: Helgi and Frodi are
purely Scandinavian cycles; while though Angantyr is a well-known
heroic name (in _Widsith_ Ongendtheow is king of the Swedes), the
legend attached to his name in the Norse sources does not survive
elsewhere. The Weland cycle is perhaps common property. None of the
versions localise it, for the names in _Voelundarkvida_, Wolfdale,
Myrkwood, &c., are conventional heroic place-names. It was popular at a
very early date in England, and is probably a Pan-Germanic legend. The
Sigurd and Hild stories, on the contrary, are both, in all versions,
localised on the Continent, the former by the Rhine, the latter in
Friesland or Jutland; both, therefore, in Low German country, whence
they must have spread to the other Germanic lands. To England they were
doubtless carried by the Low German invaders of the sixth century. On
the question of their passage to the North there are wide differences
of opinion. Most scholars agree that there was an earlier and a later
passage, the first taking Hild, Ermanric, and the Volsung story; the
second, about the twelfth or thirteenth century, the Volsungs again,
with perhaps Dietrich and Attila. But there is much disagreement as to
the date of the first transmission. Muellenhoff put it as early as 600;
Konrad Maurer, in the ninth and tenth centuries; while Dr. Golther
is of opinion that the Volsung story passed first to the vikings in
France, and then westward over Ireland to Iceland; therefore also not
before the ninth century.
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